Whether your company is a leader, challenger, follower, or nicher in the market for RFID products and services, it pays to know your prospective and current customers, the end users.

Different vertical markets face different business challenges and may require different RFID solutions. Which market segments should you target? How do potential buyers in these markets perceive your company and competitors? What products should you offer, and how would they best be promoted, priced, and distributed?

How are you attending to your existing customers? Several studies of industrial markets have shown that the highest percentage of new product ideas originate with customers. The 3M Company has claimed that more than two-thirds of its product improvement ideas came from listening to customer complaints (Philip Kotler, Marketing Management, 2003).

Listening to customer complaints is important, but it pays to listen long before they complain. Most dissatisfied customers don’t take the time to complain, but simply walk away. This fact, combined with the high cost of attracting a new customer, estimated by Kotler to be five times the cost of keeping a current customer happy, make cultivating customer satisfaction imperative.

What is your customer’s entire experience with your company, from first contact through the order cycle, product usage, customer service, and billing? The answers to these questions are critical in developing the plans and products that lead to profitable growth.